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Friday, December 20, 2013

Good evening ladies and gents! I'm so excited to bring you the first of two reviews of Literary Lacquers nail polish.

Amy Milder is the genius behind Literary Lacquers. I first discovered this indie polish a few months ago and immediately fell in love. Nail polishes named after books/characters in books? YES PLEASE! Books and nail polish, two of my favorite things in the world.

When Literary Lacquers released the Literary Liquors collection, I went nuts over Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster. I absolutely love the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy "trilogy" (it's really five books) and still wonder just what this sci-fi drink would really taste like. I've been quite tempted to try to make a recipe for it, to be honest.

So when I saw a review photo of this polish, I knew I absolutely HAD to have it. My favorite colors are blue and green, and PGGB is an amazing blue holo with scattered holo glitter. I lusted after it until, about two weeks ago, I caved in and bought two LL polishes. There was a special going on, and I ended up with a mini bottle of the limited edition of A Thousand Christmas Trees, which I may do a review on. It's a stunning pine green holo polish that is truly worthy of its name.

On to the review. I'm so pleasantly surprised by how sparkly this polish is. It's a linear holo that goes on sheer for the first coat, but is opaque in two. Here I have three coats on, because I needed to see more of that gorgeous blue.

This is an absolutely easy polish to work with. The formula is excellent, almost comparable to OPI polishes. Carefully applied, there is little to no streaking on the first coat. This would make an excellent topper to any blue polish if you want to conserve what's in your bottle.

There's a little bit of visible nail line here, but it's brought on by the flash of the camera. Since it's going to be warm tomorrow (80 degrees!), and sunny, I plan on taking more photos of this in full sunlight.

I placed my hand right under two lightbulbs in an attempt to get a photo that would mimic sunlight. I have yet to build a lightbox for better photos, so this will have to do for now.

All in all, I absolutely love Literary Lacquers. This indie polish maker is now a favorite, and I'll be sure to order more in the future. Amy, thank you for making such high quality polishes, and indulging both our inner bookworm and polish addict.

Monday, December 16, 2013

Thursday night I went with my best friend to see Desolation of Smaug in 3D...at MIDNIGHT. It was so much better than I had expected, and was worth the three and a half hours of sleep I had. The next afternoon I went to a friend's house to do her nails for her birthday and for Christmas. I had a blast doing these designs!

On her thumbs I used a Limited Edition polish from Literary Lacquers, A Thousand Christmas Trees. It's a GORGEOUS pine green linear holo. I did a gradient of blues and white on her index nails and added China Glaze Fairy Dust over for an effect of snow in the background for the snowman. For the candy canes on her pinky fingers, I did two coats of China Glaze White on White, let it dry, placed striping tape down to pattern the candy cane stripes, and went over it with Zoya Delilah (two coats). For Rudolph, I used black, white, and brown acrylic paint, using the white for his nose, and went over that with OPI Animal-Istic. I used a blue Orly polish for the background for snowflakes, and used a striper, detail brush, and white acrylic paint. For the thumbs, I used Sally Hansen Celeb City and dotted on the "tinsel", used a dotter and white acrylic paing for the base of the ornaments, and different polishes to go over the white. The snowman's scarf was placed using a detail brush and drier red polish that was a bit stringy, making it easier to place it where I wanted for the scarf.

All in all, it took about two to two and a half hours, including drying time, for this nail art.

I hope you enjoyed this! As I type this, it's ten days until Christmas. For those of you who celebrate it, have a wonderful holiday! I'll be back soon with reviews of three Literary Lacquer polishes...as soon as the sun decides to come out.

Sunday, December 15, 2013

Recently I've gotten into Doctor Who. I admit that, when I first heard about the show, I was skeptical and poked fun at friends who were into it. Now that I've watched a couple seasons, I can see what the fuss is about! It's a delightful show that has made me laugh and cry, and I just love it. I've been slowly but surely getting through it, mostly because other shows have taken up my time (looking at YOU, Supernatural!).

A few days ago I decided to try my hand at a Christmas-y Doctor Who manicure. I used China Glaze White on White as a background for four nails, and Literary Lacquers' Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster, a GLORIOUS blue linear holo polish with scattered holo glitter in it. A swatch and review post on that and two others will be coming soon.

Here's the photo of the manicure (taken with phone's camera, since my digital camera is down):

I used black acrylic paint and a striping brush to paint the wires for the lights, then used a detail brush and polish to paint the lights. Black, gray, and white acrylic paints were used for the TARDIS and the snowman (isn't he adorably evil?). I let it all dry, then topped it off with Orly's PoliShield.

Saturday, December 14, 2013

I entered another Facebook nail art competition hosted by Nailshine Journey and Polish Yer Hooves. The theme is "Favorite Christmas Songs" and can only be done using nail polish. Jingle Bells is my favorite of all Christmas songs; it's easy to remember, plus there's the Batman parody of it. I looked up photos of all the Joe Boxer prints used in the commercial and recreated them on my nails. I took a bit of artistic license and didn't do the "ugly sweater" print. Choosing only five of six prints was hard, but the following won out. It's all polish using detail brushes and a dotting tool, and took about two hours.

Hope you liked them! I've got a couple more manicures queued up to show you, so stay tuned!*

*I've been busy with my advanced nail classes and work. I'll be trying to update as often as I can since my classes are all finished.

About Me

HUGE nail polish and nail art lover currently pursuing my dream of becoming a licensed nail technician. Happily married and love my Boston Terrier, Kayla. Living on the Eastern Coast of Virginia, but long to go back to the mountains.